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Is There a God?: A Debate Paperback – 13 October 2021

Graham Oppy . Routledge . English

Bertrand Russell famously quipped that he didn’t believe in God for the same reason that he didn’t believe in a teapot in orbit between the earth and Mars: it is a bizarre assertion for which no evidence can be provided. Is belief in God really like belief in Russell’s Teapot? Kenneth L. Pearce argues that God is no teapot. God is a real answer to the deepest question of all: why is there something rather than nothing? Graham Oppy argues that we should believe that there are none but natural causal entities with none but natural causal properties—and hence should believe that there are no gods. Beginning from this basic disagreement, the authors proceed to discuss and debate a wide range of philosophical questions, including questions about explanation, necessity, rationality, religious experience, mathematical objects, the foundations of ethics, and the methodology of philosophy. Each author first presents his own side, and then they interact through two rounds of objections and replies. Pedagogical features include standard form arguments, section summaries, bolded key terms and principles, a glossary, and annotated reading lists. And in the volume Foreword, Helen De Cruz calls the debate "both edifying and a joy," and sums up what’s at stake: "Here you have two carefully formulated positive proposals for worldviews that explain all that is: classical theism, or naturalistic atheism. You can follow along with the authors and deliberate: which one do you find more plausible?" Though written with beginning students in mind, this debate will be of interest to philosophers at all levels and to anyone who values careful, rational thought about the nature of reality and our place in it.

Categories: Action & Adventure

About the Author

I am a Professor of Philosophy and a member of the Australian Academy of Humanities. I have been working at Monash University for the past twenty-five years. During my time at Monash, I have taught mostly philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and logic. My current courses are: God, Freedom and Evil; Metaphysics; and Philosophy of Religion. Prior to my appointment at Monash, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Philosophy Program in the Research School for the Social Sciences at the Australian National University in Canberra. Before that, I was a Lecturer at the University of Wollongong (no, Bruce, not Woolloomooloo). I wrote my doctoral dissertation at Princeton University. My dissertation advisor was Gil Harman; my dissertation was about questions in the philosophy of language. Before that, I was an undergraduate student at Melbourne University. I completed two degrees: a BA with a major in philosophy; and a B.Sc with a major in mathematics (and a minor in physics). Skipping back a bit, I was born in Benalla (pop. 8000); my family moved to Ballarat (pop. 80,000) when I turned six, and were still living there when I started to attend Melbourne University. My parents were Methodists; I ceased to be a religious believer when I was in my early teenage years. I am interested in a wide range of question about religion; I have done much work on arguments about the existence of God.

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